Exam question 4 · Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Youth Who Went Forth to Learn Wha…

What was the youth's reply when the King asked whether he had learned to shudder?

Mova's choice: option 2 · The right answer: option 1 · wrong ✗ · Who acts: reply, King, youth · What happens: be, ask, learn, reply · To what, where: shudder · Speech: someone speaks here

This is exam question 4 of lesson 1435 «Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, part 22: he keeps watch in the haunted castle, fights the animals, and survives the runaway bed» of the books course of Mova's primary school, asked in stiff, formal language. The page gives the question's syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause, then the 4 options as the student saw them, each with its tree and pragmatics. Every text is parsed by Mova itself. How the student answered it, with the score of every option and why: the test at school.

The question

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	root	root
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	1 What	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 youth	det
4	youth	youth	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 reply	nmod:poss
5	's	's	PART	_	4 youth	case
6	reply	reply	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 What	nsubj
7	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	10 asked	advmod
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 King	det
9	King	King	PROPN	Number=Sing	10 asked	nsubj
10	asked	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 reply	acl:relcl
11	whether	whether	SCONJ	_	14 learned	mark
12	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 learned	nsubj
13	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 learned	aux
14	learned	learn	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	10 asked	ccomp
15	to	to	PART	_	16 shudder	mark
16	shudder	shudder	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 learned	xcomp
17	?	?	PUNCT	_	1 What	punct

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	is a	past	the youth's reply		tree rules
2	ask speech: ask	past	the King		vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
3	learn	past · perfect	King	shudder	vn learn-14-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	reply		the youth		nom reply «communication transitive»: poss=agent

One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

The options

Option 1 · ✓ the right answer

He declared it a hopeless matter

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 declared	nsubj
2	declared	declare	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 declared	obj
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 matter	det
5	hopeless	hopeless	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 matter	amod
6	matter	matter	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 declared	xcomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	declare speech: other	past	He	it					vn declare-29.4-1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Attribute

Option 2 · ← Mova's choice

He declared it a hopeless matter and asked to leave the castle

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 declared	nsubj
2	declared	declare	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 declared	obj
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 matter	det
5	hopeless	hopeless	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 matter	amod
6	matter	matter	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 declared	xcomp
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 asked	cc
8	asked	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 declared	conj
9	to	to	PART	_	10 leave	mark
10	leave	leave	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	8 asked	xcomp
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 castle	det
12	castle	castle	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 leave	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	declare speech: other	past	He	it	vn declare-29.4-1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Attribute
2	ask speech: ask	past	He not said here		vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
3	leave not said to happen	to-infinitive	He not said here	the castle	vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent castle=Theme

Option 3

He said it was a hard matter

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 said	nsubj
2	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 matter	nsubj
4	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 matter	cop
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 matter	det
6	hard	hard	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 matter	amod
7	matter	matter	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 said	ccomp

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	past	He						vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
2	is a	past	it	a hard matter					tree rules

Option 4

He declared it a hopeless matter, since no one can learn it

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 declared	nsubj
2	declared	declare	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 declared	obj
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 matter	det
5	hopeless	hopeless	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 matter	amod
6	matter	matter	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 declared	xcomp
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 learn	punct
8	since	since	SCONJ	_	12 learn	mark
9	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	10 one	det
10	one	one	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 learn	nsubj
11	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	12 learn	aux
12	learn	learn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 declared	conj
13	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 learn	obj

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	declare speech: other	past	He	it					vn declare-29.4-1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Attribute
2	learn	can	no one	matter					vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Topic

Text: the tests of Mova's primary school, written for Mova (world/data/school/), as the course runner gave them to the student. Trees: Mova's own parse — the en model on the CPU, when the site is built — not checked by a teacher; they may be wrong. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), each text read on its own. Elamur Cosmic License.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/books/1435-pg503-part22/e4/